Malaysian Observatories and Those of the Islamic Civilization Era: General Similarities

Abstract

Observatories were first built to observe celestial objects such as stars and planets and to record their movement and they eventually become centres and institutions for research and education. The history of Malaysian observatories began in the early years of the 1980's with the construction of an observatory, built and systematically administered by the government for the purpose of research, education and tourism. This article discusses a study on the similarities between the Malaysian observatories and those built during the Islamic civilization era. The objective of this study was to analyze the general similarities between the two sets of observatories. A qualitative method was used in this study via instrument observation, interviews and document analyzes. The result of this study argues that all Malaysian astrofiqh observatories share specific similarities with their counterparts built during the Islamic civilization era encompassing a multitude of aspects, as in the establishment aims, landscape, instruments and name designation of observatories.